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Word Recognition in Two Languages and Orthographies: English and Greek

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Word Recognition in Two Languages and Orthographies: English and Greek Memory & Cognition 1994, 22 (3), 313-325 Word recognition in two languages and orthographies: English and Greek HELENA-FIVI CHITIRI St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada and DALE M. WILLOWS Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Toronto, Ontario, Canada Word recognition processes of monolingual readers of English and of Greek were examined with respect to the orthographic and syntactic characteristics of each language. Because of Greek's direct letter-to-sound correspondence, which is unlike the indirect representation of English, the possibility was raised of a greater influence of the phonological code in Greek word recognition. Because Greek is an inflected language, whereas English is a word order language, it was also possible that syntax might influence word recognition patterns in the two languages differen­ tially. These cross-linguistic research questions were investigated within the context of a letter cancellation paradigm. The results provide evidence that readers are sensitive to both the ortho­ graphic and the linguistic idiosyncracies of their language. The results are discussed in terms of the orthographic depth hypothesis and the competition model. In this research, we examined word recognition in En­ ber (singular, plural), and the case (nominative, genitive, glish and Greek, two languages with different orthogra­ accusative, vocative) of the noun. Verb endings provide phies and syntactic characteristics. We examined the rela­ information about person and number as well as about tionship of orthography to the role of the phonological the voice and the tense of a verb. code in word recognition as it is exemplified in the pro­ Greek words are typically polysyllabic (Mirambel, cessing of syllabic and stress information. To study the 1959). Two-syllable words are most common, followed role ofthe syntactic system, we investigated whether word closely by three-syllable words; four- and five-syllable recognition patterns in the two languages would differ words occur much less frequently. Function words are when readers were processing function words and the dif­ usually shorter than content words, having only one or ferent parts of content words. Of special importance in two syllables. Most syllables in Greek are open Greek, an inflected language, was whether readers would (Magoulas, 1979) with the predominant pattern being a pay more attention to inflected function words and to the consonant-vowel syllable. parts of content words carrying inflections. Greek stress does not have a fixed position: it can be placed on any of the last three syllables of a word, de­ Greek Language and Orthography pending on phonological, morphological, and lexical fac­ An Indo-European language, Greek depends primarily tors (Tombaides, 1986). Stressed syllables are somewhat on inflections to denote semantic and syntactic relation­ louder and longer than unstressed syllables, although the ships. In modem Greek, the noun, its modifiers, and the difference is not as pronounced as in English. Most Greek verb carry inflections. Noun inflections give information words have a single stress, which in written language is about the gender (masculine, feminine, neuter), the num- indicated by a stress mark over the appropriate syllable. A secondary stress often develops in polysyllabic words when the stressed syllable precedes or follows several un­ stressed syllables (Joseph & Philippaki-Warburton, 1987). The authors acknowledge their gratitude to the students who partici­ The 24-letter alphabet of modem Greek represents 26 pated in this study and to their teachers and school principals. For the phonemes. Sounds are represented directly in the orthog­ preparation of this article we wish to thank the editor, Margaret Jean raphy because ofthe consistency ofthe letter-to-sound cor­ Intons-Peterson; Michael Turvey; and two other anonymous reviewers for their constructive and helpful comments. For their generous editorial respondence, in most cases between a phoneme and a sin­ help we want to thank our colleagues Gary Brooks and Ken den Heyer gle letter. Orthographic variation is permitted for some and our friend Wenda Young. Correspondence concerning this article vowel sounds, which can be represented by different let­ should be addressed to H. F. Chitiri, Department of Education, St. ters or letter combinations. However, a word's spelling Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, NS, Canada B2G ICO (e-mail: provides direct information about its pronunciation be­ [email protected]). cause each letter's single sound remains constant in dif­ -Accepted by previous editor, Margaret Jean 1ntons-Peterson ferent contexts. 313 Copyright 1994 Psychonomic Society, Inc. 314 CHITIRI AND WILLOWS Orthographic System Effects nodes. The extent to which the activated letter and pho­ The orthographic depth hypothesis (Feldman & Tur­ neme clusters will correspond to syllabic units depends vey, 1983; Katz & Feldman, 1983) predicts that the not only on the saliency of syllables in the language, but phonological code should playa more important role in also on the transparency of the phonological representa­ lexical access in shallow orthographies (e.g., Serbo­ tions of the orthography. In studies ofEnglish word rec­ Croatian), which are characterized by an isomorphism be­ ognition, the use ofsyllabic units has been found in lower tween graphemes and phonemes, than in deep orthogra­ frequency words only (Jared & Seidenberg, 1990; Seiden­ phies, in which the mapping between spelling and sound berg, 1987, 1989). This tendency seems to be justified is less transparent. This is a dimension on which the or­ not only because of the lack of a uniform syllabic struc­ thographies of Greek and English, even though both are ture in English, but also because of the ambiguity in the alphabetic, differ: Greek orthography is characterized by sound representation of words. Conversely, in the shal­ a more isomorphic relationship between phonemes and low Serbo-Croatian orthography, syllabic units seem to graphemes than is English orthography. be involved in the recognition ofall words (Katz & Feld­ Research on English has indicated that in skilled word man, 1981). recognition the phonological code has a lesser role than Stress, the other property upon which we focused, gives that of the visual code, mainly because of the complex critical information not only about a word's correct pro­ letter-sound correspondences of the orthography. This nunciation, but also about the retrieval of its phonologi­ complexity renders the phonological pathway slow and cal form (Colombo, 1992). This information may be es­ unreliable (Coltheart, 1978). As a result, some theorists pecially relevant to word identification in languages in suggest that the phonological representation of English which stress location is not predictable (Black & Byng, applies only to the predictable parts ofthe word-mainly, 1986). Stress effects are apparent only when a word's to consonants and consonant clusters (Carr & Pollatsek, phonological form is assembled on the basis of letter­ 1985), or to lower frequency words only (Seidenberg, sound correspondences (Colombo, 1992). In such in­ 1985). Other theorists propose that the phonological stances, specific syllables may emerge as more decisive code's role is mainly that of preserving the information and consequently more sensitive to stress location than in short-term memory (addressed phonology; see Patter­ other syllables. This seems to be true of final syllables son & Coltheart, 1987). in both English (Drewnowski & Healy, 1982; Goldman Research on alphabetic writing systems with a more & Healy, 1985; Treiman, Goswami, & Bruck, 1990) and regular letter-to-sound correspondence than that found in Italian (Colombo, 1992). English has suggested a stronger involvement of the In the present experiment, the orthographic depth hy­ phonological code in lexical access. For example, in both pothesis led us to expect that syllable and stress effects lexical decision and naming tasks, Serbo-Croatian readers would be more pronounced in Greek than in English word are influenced more by the phonological forms of the recognition because of the Greek orthography's con­ words (Lukatela, Savic, Ognjenovic, & Turvey, 1978; sistency in representing the sounds of the language. Lukatela & Turvey, 1980, 1990), and less by qualities operating on the lexical level, such as semantic priming Language System Effects (Frost, Katz, & Bentin, 1987) or frequency (Feldman & The second aspect of the reading process that we ex­ Turvey, 1983). Research has likewise indicated a more amined was the processing of syntactic information-in pronounced role ofthe phonological code in word recog­ particular readers' sensitivity to the syntactic cues avail­ nition in German than in English (Scheerer, 1987). able in their language. We based our hypothesis on the To study the role ofthe phonological code in word rec­ competition model (MacWhinney & Bates, 1989; Mac­ ognition, we examined the syllable and stress. Syllables Whinney, Bates, & Kliegl, 1984), according to which cue are universal properties ofspeech; they playa major role strength (a linguistic structure's frequency and reliabil­ in the assignment of the phonological rules within the ity in expressing desired functions) plays a major role in word, providing a framework to its phonological form speakers' processing of language. On the basis of this (Selkirk, 1980). The formation of syllables follows the model, linguistic structures
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